


Teamwork, Or, the Sophie Job

by willow_41z



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-22 02:07:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willow_41z/pseuds/willow_41z
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sophie needs the team's help. She just doesn't realize it yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teamwork, Or, the Sophie Job

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the early part of season 2, or possibly during season 3, depending on your take on Nate and Sophie's relationship.

They'd just finished the con minutes before and were riding high on success. Nate and Hardison had been the first to make it back to the office, followed by Eliot and Parker. They were just waiting on Sophie, when--

“Bella?” an unfamiliar male voice demanded. Hardison jumped, then realized they all still had their comms in.

“Victor,” Sophie's voice came. “What a pleasant surprise.”

The rest of the team, who knew that Victor was the name of Sophie's current boyfriend, exchanged looks.

“Pleasant surprise? _Pleasant surprise??_ Is that all you can say to me?”

Parker's eyes widened.

“I was _shot_ , Bella! Two weeks ago! You never came to see me, you never called me--”

Hardison, who knew they'd been in Laos two weeks prior and who had personally witnessed the destruction of Sophie's phone underneath an out-of-control truck, winced.

“Victor, I'm sorry, I tried to get in touch with you, but I was working overseas and couldn't leave. Didn't you get my voicemails?”

A loud snort. “Don't try that with me, Bella. Your voicemails? The ones you sent while you were sipping champagne in some Paris café, or, or flirting with some guy in Tokyo, or enjoying the view from your _suite_ in Dubai--”

Parker, who had extracted Sophie from the handcuffs in which she'd spent a very uncomfortable night with rocks for a pillow, narrowed her eyes.

“ _Don't_ try to convince me that you care. For God's sake, you could have at least called when you got back to the States.”

“Look, Victor, I tried, but something came up at work and my mobile was ruined and I--”

“Oh, give it up, Bella. There I was, lying on a bed of pain, and you didn't lift a finger to comfort me. My God, it's like you have no heart! Not an ounce of womanly compassion in you, made entirely of _ice_ , you're not even upset now--”

Eliot, who had come upon Sophie crying silently over the corpse of a malnourished three-year-old after the first plan had gone wrong, made a fist.

“Well,” Sophie said, her voice colder than any of them had ever heard it before. “I don't think there's anything worth getting upset about, is there? You've made yourself quite clear. Goodbye, Victor.”

“Where do you think you're going, I wasn't finished--”

“I am,” Sophie said carefully, enunciating each word with killing clarity, “finished with you.” Her voice dropped on the last word, and then there was the sound of heels clicking quickly against sidewalk.

Eliot finally broke the silence. “Want me to break his face, Sophie?”

They heard a gasp. “My God, did you all hear that?”

Hardison looked around. “Uh, uh... no, just us three, Nate's upstairs. In the, uh, shower.” Across the room, Nate gave him a tiny nod.

“I'm sorry, Sophie.” Parker sounded like the words took thought. “Want to go out and steal something?”

“No, I'm just going to... going to skip the dinner tonight, sorry. Be round tomorrow for the briefing. And Eliot-- don't break his face. He's not worth the trouble.” There was the sound of the comm clicking off.

Nate took out his comm and put it on the counter. “I was never here,” he said, went upstairs, and started the shower.

Hardison, Parker and Eliot exchanged looks. “I'm goin' out,” Eliot said abruptly, and left.

“Why did you tell Sophie that Nate wasn't listening?” Parker asked.

Hardison glanced upstairs, to make sure the bathroom door was closed. “Well, you know, it's not so bad if we hear, but it's different if Nate hears.”

“But why?”

“Because Nate and Sophie are, uh, are...”

“Having sex?”

“What? No. At least, I don't think so. Man, I don't want to think about that, what they do is their business.”

“Oh.” Parker digested this. “You mean because they're not-so-secretly in love with each other and neither of them will admit it?”

“Yeah, you could... you could say that.”

“So,” Parker continued, “being in love with someone makes you want to keep them from knowing things about you?” She looked confused.

“No, see. They're both too proud, or too messed up, or something to just come right out and say anything. So Sophie, she dates other men and calls it moving on, and Nate, he pretends not to care. But they both do care. So if Sophie knew that Nate heard one of her boyfriends being nasty to her, she'd be embarrassed.”

“Oooooooh,” Parker said. Then she frowned. “I don't think love is very logical.”

He laughed. “Not at all, Parker. Not. At. All. Haven't you ever been in love?”

She gave him a confused look. “I love Bunny. I think. Last time someone tried to take him away I blew them up. Is that love?”

Hardison stared at her. “Um. I, I guess so. What about your, you know...”

Her face closed up. “All my family was dead by the time I was six. I have errands.” She got up, shrugged on her jacket, and left.

 ---

Eliot came back about an hour later, face reddened from the cold, looking pleased with himself. He didn't say where he had gone, but he dropped a bag of groceries on the counter and started chopping vegetables.

Nate drifted downstairs and poured himself a drink. “Where's Parker? I thought we were all doing dinner.”

“She, uh, she had to run some errands,” Hardison said, chuckling over his laptop.

Nate glanced over, then just shook his head. “Whatever you're doing, I want deniable plausibility.”

“Don't worry, man,” Hardison said. “Ain't nobody going to complain about this.”

“Complain about what?”

Hardison and Nate jumped at Parker's voice. Eliot didn't. Hardison looked over his shoulder. “How'd you even get in here?”

“Through the door. What are you doing?” Before Hardison could close his laptop, she was looking over his shoulder. “Is that--”

“Victor Trebleau's Facebook page.” Hardison clicked something. “He's now interested in men, women, and domestic animals. I also rerouted his paycheck to the Make-A-Wish Foundation and made a sizable donation from his account, _and_ I used facial recognition software to find his pictures in the cloud. He--”

“In the what?” Eliot interrupted. “How can you store things in a--”

“The cloud, man. You know, distributed data storage, not linked to a physical--”

“Never mind! Sorry I asked.”

Hardison gave him a dirty look. “As I was _saying_ , he's got some photos up there from his best friend's bachelor party. A _lot._ And now--” He typed something. “They're on his LinkedIn page. Oh, look, he had an email to his boss saved in drafts. Let me just edit that for him--”

Nate's phone buzzed. “Hello?” he sounded surprised. “No, we're all here. Eliot's cooking. No, sure, come on over.” He hung up. “That was Sophie. She's on her way. So I'd hide that, if I were you, before she gets here.”

“Hide what?” Hardison looked like the picture of innocence. “I'm just checking the scores for the, uh, play-offs...”

“Playoffs were last month, Hardison!” Eliot dumped onions in the skillet with unnecessary vigor.

“Man, whatever.”

Sophie got there some forty minutes later, carrying a bottle of wine. “Sorry I'm late, everybody. Had a little snafu. Brought this, though.”

“So we're all pretending we don't know?” Parker muttered to Hardison.

“I guess so. Here, you grab the plates and I'll get the silverware.”

They set the table while Eliot finished the food. Sophie, in an effort to look relaxed and unconcerned that convinced no one-- they weren't on a con, after all-- tried to help, and inadvertently spilled the contents of one of the bowls over her hand and arm. “Oh, Eliot, I'm sorry, I spilled the sauce--” She emptied the contents of her pocket before the sauce ran down into it.

“'s all right, there's more on the stove. Here, why don't you--” But the sink was occupied by a colander of draining pasta.

“No, I'll just go upstairs. I won't keep you all waiting.” She disappeared up the stairs.

In the sudden silence, her vibrating phone buzzed against the countertop. Parker picked it up. “It's Victor,” she said with a sudden, disconcerting grin, and put it on speaker.

“Bella!” the man sounded frantic. “Bella, you've got to help me out, I left my meeting and my car wouldn't start--”

Eliot smirked as he refilled the bowl of sauce.

“-- and I had to have it towed to the shop and when I tried to pay them I'd lost my wallet--”

Parker took a leather wallet out of her pocket and placed it on the counter.

“-- so I had to go back to my apartment, and then I couldn't get in because my key _stopped working_ , I don't know how the hell that happened--”

Parker deposited a bunch of keys next to the wallet.

“-- and when I broke in and got another card and went back to the shop to get the car my card was declined, which I don't know how in the hell that happened either because I checked my balance this morning--”

Hardison chuckled softly to himself.

“-- so then the shop demanded to see some ID, which of course I didn't have, and I got into a fight with the manager, and then my boss left me some ridiculous message about inappropriate workplace behavior, and then the manager called the police, and now I need you to come down to the precinct and just tell them who I am, Bella, please, I'm sorry I said all those nasty things to you but my sister is out of town and she won't be back until Monday and-- and-- Hello? Bella?”

Nate reached for the phone. “I'm afraid Bella is unable to come to the phone,” he said.

“Who the hell is this?”

“Oh, you don't need to know that. She told me all about you, though.”

“She _did_ \-- what the-- who the--” he swallowed audibly. “Look, I don't care. Just-- just put her on, okay?”

“Nope, can't do that. She's looking for her clothes. Couldn't remember if she left them by the Jacuzzi or in the massage room. Tell you what, though, I can have her call you back in a few-- Oh.” Nate paused. “Well. Guess she didn't find them. Gotta go.” He hung up over Victor's choked words.

Hardison's grin turned into a laugh. Eliot chuckled. Parker smiled fiercely. Sophie came back downstairs, and stopped, looking at them all warily. “What'd I miss?”

“Oh, nothing,” Nate said. “Nothing at all. Shall we?” He indicated the table.


End file.
